Quickies: Same-Sex Marriage, Pride Month, Slurs
By [CN: transphobic language]
- For the first time, a US Armed Forces color guard has participated in a pride parade. An eight-member color guard team from the U.S. Army Military District of Washington lead the DC pride parade.
- Meanwhile in South Korea, the pride parade in Seoul was disrupted by Christian protesters who blocked the route.
- Good news on the same-sex marriage front: the ban in Wisconsin was stuck down on Friday.
- More good news: North Dakota’s ban on same-sex marriage was challenged this Friday. ND was the last state with an unchallenged same-sex marriage ban.
- Can we talk about language? Maybe not if you’re Dan Savage and you’re talking about your discontinued use of the word “tranny.”
Featured image: Mike Conneen/WJLA
I also just read Dan Savage’s response to the whole U of C thing, too: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/06/07/about-that-hate-crime-i-committed-at-university-of-chicago
I’m definitely not a big fan of Savage’s, but I think in this instance he’s being unfairly targeted.
Thanks for the link; that was certainly worth a read as well. I do think he misses one point about triggering, though. As I understand it, there is indeed a significant difference in the triggering effects of hearing the actual word versus hearing a euphemism for it. That’s the reason I personally try to avoid using slurs, even in discussions about those slurs – I don’t want to risk even a minor trigger in someone who may have had that word thrown at them with venom many times in their life. But I’m no expert here, so anyone who knows better about if/how this works, feel free to weigh in.
I read Savage’s account, too, but I felt like linking to a 3rd party article would be more neutral. I think it’s wrong to characterize talking about a slur as hate speech, and it sounds like the people in charge of the petition used dishonest tactics like deleting negative comments. OTOH, I do recognize that some words can be triggering in a way that a euphemism like “t-slur” are not. I’ve gone back and forth about this: when are you obligated to use a euphemism in order to compensate for someone’s discomfort? I’m in favor of trigger warnings, and I would probably use euphemisms in order to make my content here accessible to the widest audience. That doesn’t mean everyone is obligated to do that. If Savage had been asked by the moderator to change his languages, he should have. Should he have changed it on account of the objections of one audience member? I don’t know.